


Blessed

by megastarstrike



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Futago Siblings, No Metaverse (Persona 5), asking for blessing, discussion of weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 07:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19970440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megastarstrike/pseuds/megastarstrike
Summary: Goro learns to let go.





	Blessed

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to tackycrows for being an awesome beta <3

Goro firmly believed his half-sister, as annoying and petty as she could be at times (and impatient… and grudgeful… and generally just an idiot), she deserved the best life she could possibly have. That was the reason even into their early thirties, he still took her out every few weeks to explore a new cafe in Tokyo. They made funny faces at each other when they happened to pass one another in the city. Goro entertained her rants about new Featherman episodes, and Futaba entertained his rants about some new social media startup having more followers than him. And they still wandered into Leblanc at the end of the day and exchanged half-hearted insults back and forth, only to have their father come in and absolutely wreck both of them verbally. Goro loved Futaba with all his heart.

Then some blue-haired moron came stumbling into their lives and somehow managed to steal Futaba’s heart. And here he was now, asking Goro for his blessing to propose to her.

Goro blinked at the question. He set his cup of coffee down, plastered a polite smile on his face, and said, “My apologies, Kitagawa, I don’t think I heard that clearly. Could you repeat that?”

“I would like to propose to Futaba sometime in the coming months,” Yusuke said. He didn’t even bat an eye. Cocky fucker. “I was asking for your blessing.”

Goro remembered the day he and Yusuke met quite clearly, mostly because he was supposed to be taking Futaba on their annual (more like monthly because neither he nor Futaba had any form of self-control) trip to Akihabara when they were twenty-two. The day was going great until Futaba started an argument with a man who had arranged high-quality figurines into a design that was much more “visually-appealing” (his words, not Goro’s). Eventually, they came to an understanding and agreed to disagree. Goro had only seen that much with his own eyes and was too shocked that Futaba had initiated a conversation with someone on her own to interfere.

According to her, they kept bumping into each other at various places, catching each other doing the most ridiculous things. The realization they had mutual friends came soon afterwards, and their time together became more regular. Then eventually, Futaba gathered up the courage to ask him out. Their relationship was nine years strong.

Yusuke continued upon receiving no response from Goro. “This is a formality more than anything. I am certainly not asking for your permission to propose to her.”

Goro’s smile tightened. “Ah, yes. You were always quite a traditional person.”

“Still, that does not mean I will adhere to the customs of an era long past.”

“I realize that.” Goro scrambled to continue the conversation. There had to be some sort of flaw in this. It was his little sister they were talking about here. “Have you discussed marriage with Futaba?”

“Yes. We both agreed it would be wise to marry one another this year.”

“And… you do realize weddings are expensive, yes?”

“Neither of us want a particularly grand wedding, and Futaba and I are at the top of our fields. Money isn’t an issue.”

Ah, right. Goro had almost forgotten about that (not about Futaba, of course. He took every opportunity he could get to “casually mention” all the popular software his sister had developed). Yusuke may have been the definition of a disaster, but that lent itself quite well to his chosen career as an artist. In fact, their most pleasant discussions together often involved art in some fashion. It’s a shame. They might have even been friends if Goro didn’t worry about Yusuke’s habit of buying completely useless things on a whim for the sake of art (and yes, those countless antique masks and dolls were useless. Futaba called them cursed. Goro called them stupid).

But he could afford to make stupid decisions like that once in a while. Yusuke wasn’t the same broke art student living off cup ramen and questionably edible plants he was back when they first met. He had matured as he approached his thirties, and as a result, his spending impulses have calmed just a bit.

But still…

“Will you be able to provide for Futaba when there are ruts in your creativity?” Goro asked. “The arts are a very unpredictable field, after all.”

“What a shallow idea,” he snorted.

Ah. Okay.

And there was the thing Goro both admired and hated about Yusuke: he never hesitated to speak his mind. He had ruined many conversations with Goro and countless other people just by being too blunt about the wrong thing.

_ But isn’t Futaba the same way? _

Ah, thoughts. How they never failed to disappoint him.

It was true, though. Every time Futaba said the wrong thing to the wrong person without thinking, Goro had to use his charm and politeness to drag her out of her own mess. But Goro never reprimanded her for it. He never had the heart to after years of watching his sister isolate herself from society following her time under her uncle’s “care”.

(Wakaba was a good woman. She had taken Goro in after his own mother died, only for her to be ripped away from both him and Futaba by a drunk driver. How could she have such horrible family members?)

“Futaba is more than capable of taking care of herself,” Yusuke said.

“But she—”

“—can cook simple things, do laundry, provide for herself, speak to strangers for a short period of time without exhausting herself, call people on the phone, and so much more.”

Goro’s words died in his throat. He couldn’t deny any of that. “She takes a while to psych herself up to call someone.”

“But she does it nonetheless.” Yusuke paused to take a sip of coffee. “Despite her weaknesses, she is a well-adjusted individual. It’s patronizing to say otherwise.”

If Goro hadn’t practiced his mask of stoicism, he would have choked up on the spot. Pride swelled in his chest when he remembered just how far Futaba had grown from isolating herself in a tomb when she was a teenager to where she was now. It had taken a year, but Goro managed to coax her out of her room and walk with him to Leblanc on her eighteenth birthday. Then a year after that, Sojiro had hired Akira (read: took him in out of pity after Akira revealed his grand leap to Tokyo right after finishing school wasn’t as grand of an idea as he originally thought. Sojiro’s heart was bigger than he liked to let on). After befriending him, her development skyrocketed exponentially. Now, she jogged with their local track coach, chattered away on the phone with a model who visited frequently, helped a student pursuing her PhD in law study for exams, crunched numbers with the CEO of a food company…

And Goro? He did the same. Futaba had dragged him out of his shell (“Come meet my friends!” she had insisted with those dreadfully puppy-like eyes of hers. “I’m still kinda nervous around them, you know.” Goro didn’t have enough of a hole in his heart to not cave into her demands) and exposed him to a new world. A happier one. Every time he tried to thank her for it, she laughed him off and insisted she should be the one thanking him. He still couldn’t see why.

She was his world. It was scary to trust someone else with that.

“She’s still my little sister,” Goro said. He cursed how his voice cracked on the last word and reined his emotions back in. “She’s all I have. You can’t take her away.”

Luckily, Yusuke either hadn’t caught onto his declining emotional state or chose not to comment on it. Instead, he raised a questioning eyebrow. “You have much more than her in your life, do you not? Boss, Akira, Ann, Makoto, Haru… Ryuji claims he can’t tolerate your presence, but you’ve certainly noticed he drags you back into his life every once in a while.” He set the cup of coffee down. “And taking someone away from another is impossible. People are not items, after all, as I’m sure you already know. Is that what this is about?”

Damn it. Goro stayed silent.

Yusuke sighed, leaning back against his seat. He almost seemed disappointed. “So it is. I assure you Futaba loves us equally, most likely you even more so. She won’t disappear from your life.”

He said that so casually, as if it was a simple fact of life. Like he didn’t feel as if someone important was about to be ripped away from him. How did he do that?

“Doesn’t that bother you?” Goro blurted.

Yusuke shook his head. “Why should it? You’re her brother.”

Goro didn’t have a response to that.

Then the door to Leblanc slammed open, and footsteps pounded in.

“Daaaad!” someone cried. “I want curry!”

Goro’s lips unconsciously curved into a smile. The back of his eyes felt hot with tears he absolutely refused to let out. Get the fuck back, feelings. “Father isn’t here, Futaba. He locked up an hour ago and headed home.”

“Oh.” Futaba’s arms fell to her side, and she turned to face Goro and Yusuke. “I still want curry. Go fetch, Inari! There should still be some left in the kitchen.”

“You have a pair of functional legs, do you not?” Yusuke said.

“Please?”

Yusuke gave her an unamused stare.

Futaba stuck her bottom lip out.

“... Fine. I suppose.” Yusuke got up from his seat and walked into the kitchen.

Well, at least there was one thing he and Yusuke had in common.

With that, the pout on Futaba’s face melted into furrowed eyebrows and a frown. She poked Goro on the cheek. “You look like you’re about to cry. What’s up?”

When they were still in primary school, they skirmished for a toy, and Goro ended up breaking it. He once poked fun at her Featherman collection, not knowing how important it was to her until her face fell faster than a rock in water. He had hidden her headphones from her once shortly after her escape from isolation and nearly caused her to have a breakdown. The first time Futaba announced she and Yusuke were dating, he stared, stared, and stared until the atmosphere got so uncomfortable even Yusuke could sense it. Just last week, he called her at the wrong time and embarrassed her in front of a few colleagues.

Despite everything, she still cared.

Goro paused, not trusting himself to speak, before finally, hesitantly holding his arms out.

Futaba clicked her tongue. “Oh, you sappy loser. Come here.” She threw her arms around him, bringing him into a warm embrace. “What’s brought this on all of a sudden?”

“You’re such a nuisance. I love you.”

Futaba chuckled and pulled away from the embrace, but not before ruffling his hair. “Love you, too.”

She didn’t abandon him during their entire life together. She wouldn’t abandon him now that she had a fiancé in the near future. 

He saw now. People fulfilled different roles in life, but that didn’t mean they were any less needed. He was still her older brother, and she was still his younger sister. They would always be family.

It was time to let go.

Yusuke emerged from the kitchen with a plate of curry in hand and set it on the table. “My apologies for the meal being lukewarm. I couldn’t find a spare pan to heat it back up.”

“Eh, you tried. Thanks anyway.” With that, Futaba took the spoon and began eating.

Goro looked up and made eye contact with Yusuke.

Yusuke didn’t back down from it, a good sign he was serious about this. Either that or he was scatterbrained enough to not realize why Goro was staring at him like this. Honestly, both were equally plausible.

Goro’s gaze darted from Futaba cheerfully talking about a breakthrough she had made with one of her programs to Yusuke. “The answer is yes, by the way. You may.”

The relief in Yusuke’s eyes was unmistakable. He gave him the slightest smile before nodding and tuning back into Futaba’s rambling. Upon seeing that, Futaba’s hand movements grew larger, and excitement outlined every word she spoke.

They made each other so happy. What kind of brother would Goro be to take that away from his sister?

So Goro sipped at his coffee, content to listen to the discussion in front of him. 

For once, life was normal.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah. this really is 2k words of akechi and yusuke having an awkward conversation. sorry for the trash fellas


End file.
